Venus Series Part II: How to Tell if Your Venus Needs Help & What to Do About it if it Does (Addendum)

ADDENDUM to the article titled Venus Series Part II: How to Tell if Your Venus Needs Help & What to Do About it if it Does.

I won’t be able to explain WHY Venus is considered to be damaged in certain signs and circumstances because it too much to write about here, but this will get you started.

Venus will be abbreviated as Ve in the chart.

There are no astrological symbols used in this chart version, so you can see what SIGN Venus is in by looking at the other letters in the box, in much smaller text and in a lighter color placed on the bottom of the box in the left hand corner. You can probably already tell what the signs are, but I’ll put the legend in here for you just in case you don’t recognize them:

Venus is in the sign of Aries in this example birth chart.
As you know from the previous newsletter about Venus, that Venus in the signs of Taurus, Libra and Pisces are the best signs for Venus, but when in the signs Virgo, Scorpio and Aries, Venus is not able to express his nature easily or comfortably.

Think of the signs as a kind of clothing. If you are naturally a glamorous, sensual, and flamboyant type of dresser who loves bright colors and lots of sparkling jewelry, you’ll feel uncomfortable and unable to express yourself in buttoned-down, conservative, beige- on-beige styled clothing worn with only simple stud earrings.
[Sorry guys, I hope you can imagine a similar, but masculine, example for yourself :-)].

When Venus is “afflicted” by other planets, that would be by either Saturn (Sa), Mars (Ma) or Rahu (Ra, the North Node of the Moon, not a planet, but an eclipse point). This can be seen if Ve is with (inside the same house) Sa, Ma, or Ra. If a planet has an R, like SaR in the example chart below, the R means Retrograde, which just makes the planet a bit stronger.

When these planets are in the same house and, therefore, the same sign as Venus, this is the strongest affliction. But if they aspect Venus, they are also afflicting it. An “aspect” in astrology is best explained as a “glance.”

If you are walking down the street and you see a big, mean, scary-looking guy leaning against a wall and glaring at you, it wouldn’t feel good and you would probably decide not to walk past him. But if you see a beautiful woman or a handsome man leaning against a wall and smiling at you, you would feel great and you’d probably walk over there as quickly as you could. This is pretty much what it’s like when a planet “glances” at another planet.

I’m just going to use Jaimini aspect techniques here, because that’s what I mainly use in my practice, but you should know that there are other astrological techniques that would explain why you are not getting the full benefits of a robust Venus in your birth chart too, but are beyond the scope of this article.

Planets in the moveable signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, “glance” at the fixed signs of Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius and Taurus, except when they are in the house right next to them, thus:

The planets in the dual signs of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces, are easy because they all aspect each other, and there are no exceptions because the houses ruled by the dual signs are never next to each other.

Note: The meanings of moveable, fixed and dual signs is a whole other subject that I’ll write about at some later date, but would take us too far off topic for this article.

Whew! So, now you can look at the example chart again and see that Rahu (Ra) aspects, or “glances” at Venus (Ve), Sun and Mercury. Since it’s Rahu, a “malefic” in Vedic astrology, it’s more like a glare. Since we are only concerned with Venus right now, Rahu afflicts Venus in this chart.

There is another concept in astrology called “combustion by the Sun”, and that is when a planet is in the same sign as the Sun and is concealed by the light of the Sun, being symbolically “burned up” in the Sun’s heat and rays. In this example chart, we see that Venus and Mercury is Combust the Sun. This is another affliction, but in this case, because the Sun is “exalted” in Aries, it’s not as bad as it would be if Venus and the Sun were in the sign of Libra because the Sun is “debilitated” in the sign of Libra (the Sun can’t act very Sun-like in the sign of Libra). Venus in the example chart below is “combust the Sun.”

Example birth chart

Now we figure out what house Venus is occupying. Starting with the house that has the double diagonal line through it, house number one (also known as the Ascendant, Rising Sign or Lagna), count in a clockwise direction until you reach the house that Venus is in. In the example chart above, Venus is in the 4th house of the emotional life, a good house for Venus to be in, showing that the person is basically a happy person who has some difficulties with the significations of Venus.

If it is in the 6th, 8th or 12th house, then Venus has further challenges as these houses are considered to be the “misery” houses in the chart. I know this seems like a lot of negativity, but really, it’s not all that bad! Half of solving any problem is knowing exactly what the problem IS and from the perspective of astrology, it explains experiences you’ve had in your life that nothing else can.

There are several other more subtle afflictions to Venus, but is way beyond the scope of this article, so we’ll just stick to these for now.

Now, on to what can be done about it! Vedic astrology is famous for it’s planetary remedies because they are so effective and bring about so much healing when applied diligently and with sincere devotion.

Remedies or how to bring more fulfillment, happiness, beauty and love into your life

More people come to astrologers because of relationship problems than just about anything else, but career and money issues are a strong second. I think it’s probably true that everything in life can be reduced down to either love or money, and both of these fall into the realm of Venus (and Jupiter too, but that’s another story). All of us, at one time or another in our lives, have to play the game of love and money, and if we can’t seem to get much of either, or if we have lots of trouble with it, we start looking around for answers.

Here are some of those answers:

Charities and Donations

Helping young women in some way through monetary donations or volunteering your time is a very powerful way to improve the effects of Venus in your life. Women’s shelters fit in this category as well as many other programs that are designed to help women, such as the organization Dress For Success® where you can donate some of your nice work clothes (especially if they are made from natural fibers and are the color green, the color for Libra), instead of throwing them away or just leaving them in your closet unworn for years. Doing either of these on a Friday helps too because Friday is the day for Venus (now you know why everyone is so happy on Friday).

Believe it or not, donating a horse will go a long way to helping your Venus. There are organizations that help with the donation of a horse to people in developing countries, to veterinarian schools, and many other situations. If you google ‘donate a horse,’ a bunch of stuff comes up. You could also donate to adopt-a-horse charities or horse related charities.

Venus Imagery and Mantras to Help with Focusing the Mind

A focused mind can attract anything to it, it’s really the most magnetic force on the planet (except for gravity, I think, but maybe not!). Hanging an image of Venus (as depicted in the ancient Vedic scriptures of Parashara), in your bedroom in the Southeast corner or wall, and then looking at it often while thinking about Venus, or while chanting mantras to Venus will help to concentrate your mind on attracting Venus’ benefits into your life.

Mantras are a very powerful way to reduce negative energies and effects. A mantra will help focus your mind when it is scattered. Ultimately, the mantra produces a state where the body vibrates at the rate completely in tune with the energy and state of mind represented by, and contained within the mantra, in this case, Venus.

To find a Venus mantra, google ‘Venus mantras’ and pick the one you like. Some are Sanskrit phrases chanted alone and some are Sanskrit phrases chanted to music. There is a lot of information on the benefits of chanting in the ancient language of Sanskrit online and in books (go to Amazon and do a search on Mantras) because of the beneficial vibrations chanting mantras creates in your body.

A good source for images of Venus, is Srishti Wilhelm’s site http://www.srishtiart.net/Grahas.htm. She painted the images of the planets (called Grahas in Sanskrit) according to the descriptions in the ancient Vedic texts. They come in a variety of sizes and are very affordable (I don’t receive any kind of fee or commission for this, I just really like her work).

Self-Knowledge and Attaining Venus Skills

This is where hiring a coach and/or a therapist comes in. Emotional healing, improving self-esteem, learning relationship skills and understanding yourself emotionally are very practical ways to strengthen Venus in your life. Very few of us are happier being alone without someone to love and be loved by, so this is obviously a worthwhile investment in yourself. There are tons of books with invaluable information about developing relationship skills, but nothing beats working with another live, specially-skilled, human being.

The ability to ‘self-soothe,’ a Venus ability, will help you more than anything else in your relationships and career. Plus, finding meaning in the painful experiences and events of your life fall under the rulership of Venus too. The reason that the 12-Step programs and others like it, work so well because they teach tools to self-soothe without the use of drugs or alcohol, or any other thing or substance that satisfies only for the moment but later brings pain.

When it comes to food and/or body issues, overeating, under-eating, or just body-hatred and body image problems, there are some wonderful coaches out there that teach the feminine way to end the battle with your body. It’s gorgeous stuff! Just google “the feminine way to weight loss.” These techniques work for men too, by the way, as every man has Venus in his birth chart too!

Read and Write Poetry

Poetry is really a form of prophesy and is essentially spiritual in nature. Venus is the planet of prophesy and gives knowledge of the past and the future. For most of us, there are poems that we have heard or memorized and loved sometime in our lives; spending some time re-acquainting ourselves with this lovely form of writing will enliven your emotional life like you wouldn’t believe. Much of the enjoyment of music can come from the lyrics, which are basically poetic expressions of thoughts and feelings.

Devotion

Devoting yourself faithfully to something you love, is a Venus practice and will lead you to more Venus effects such as love, happiness, making better choices based on self-respect, and to more enjoyment of whatever goodness life brings you. It can be devotion to the study of anything (though astrology is an especially good choice in my opinion), or devotion to a person or persons, such as your family, or to helping people in general. It can also be devotion to practices such as yoga, meditation, prayer, journaling, writing a book, it really doesn’t matter, it’s the act of devotion itself, over time, that matters.

Mark Your Calendar

I forgot to mention last week that Venus rules vehicles too, knowledge being one kind of vehicle, and, of course, cars, the other kind of vehicles we are very familiar with! When Venus is traveling through the signs of Taurus, Libra and Pisces is a great time to buy or trade a car, especially when it is in the sign of Libra. So now is a good time (until June 10th), and when Venus travels into the sign of Libra on September 16, 2011 and stays until October 9, 2011, is an even better time (have you noticed that new car models come out in the fall?), so mark your calendar if you want to get a new car!

Next week I will tell you about Venus people; famous Venus people and ‘ordinary’ Venus people in your life and how to recognize them (hint, they are usually enjoying themselves and you enjoy being with them).